BDC

Thank you everyone so much for your responses! I understand I may be a bit naive right now and a bit too optimistic, haha. I'm just really excited to get into the profession. I have the upmost respect for you all nurses. You guys are my inspirations and heroes and seeing you guys all out there working during this pandemic makes me realize even more of how passionate I am to become one of you guys. I think you guys are the most amazing people with the coolest jobs! Thanks again for all your hard work and I hope you and families stay well and healthy!

Hey guys, I'm a brand new nursing student here with an unwithering passion for learning everything I need to learn from nursing school! I just have a few questions that I was hoping some of you nurses could answer and explain! 1) I understand that nurses are not allowed to give medical advice to anyone when off the clock, as they can lose their license, but my question is theoretically speaking, do nurses know "enough" medical knowledge to potentially give advice? Like say that there was no law saying that nurses cannot give medical knowledge and that you wouldn't lose your license if you did. I only ask because I hope that I will learn enough from school to be knowledgable enough in the field to understanding the why and the how. 2) Also, I guess my other question is how much can a nurse help outside of a hospital setting? My pathophysiology professor just mentioned to me that if a medical emergency happened at public space, you can only assistance to a certain extent, but you should never tell the person that you are a nurse because then you could be held liable. My passion for nursing stems from me wanting to help people, even when I'm off the clock. I love being knowledgable and helping to make a difference so I was wondering how much could you do to help a pedestrian enough where I wouldn't lose my license? I'm just confused because of I thought we could help in life-threatening emergencies due to the Good Samaritan Law. 3) This kind of ties in with the first question, but could I potentially give health advice, if not medical advice? Like if I had a friend who was constantly stress eating and generally not taking well care of themselves, could I inform them why chronic stress is not good for their health due to high cortisol levels leading to high blood pressure and spiked blood glucose levels and blah blah blah? Isn't that technically "medical advice" so am I not allowed to say that? Or in another situation, if I saw a family member having signs of cancer but they are not aware of it as they never saw a doctor, can I advise them to see a doctor and say something like, "Hey, I am not a doctor and it is completely outside my scope of practice to diagnose you, but I am concerned that you may have ______ cancer and I think you should go see a doctor"? Sorry for the long post, I'm just so thrilled about getting into the profession! :)